Corrections - Community-based Corrections

women prison programs drug

Community-based correction programs began in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The programs offer an alternative to incarceration within the prison system. Many criminologists believed a significant number of offenders did not need incarceration in high security prison cells. Some inmates, who might otherwise have been ready to turn away from a life of crime, instead became like the hardened criminals they associated with in prison.

In response, states, counties, and cities established local correctional facilities and programs that became known as community-based corrections. These facilities, located in neighborhoods, allowed offenders normal family relationships and friendships as well as rehabilitation services such as counseling, instruction in basic living skills, how to apply for jobs, and work training and placement.

Women in Prison

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the fastest growing group in prison and jail population was women. According to the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were 91,612 women in state and federal prisons at the end of 2000, or 6.6 percent of the nation's total prison population. Ten times that many or about 900,000 were on probation or parole. Back in 1970 there were just 5,600 incarcerated women, 12,300 in 1980, and in 1990 approximately 40,000. From 1990 until the end of 2000 the number of imprisoned women grew by 125 percent.

Eighty-five percent of women prisoners committed nonviolent crimes, mostly drug offenses and theft. The astounding increase in the number of incarcerated women in the 1990s was largely due to drug arrests. In the early 1980s federal and state governments initiated a "War on Drugs," in reaction to a huge increase in drug related offenses throughout the United States.

Most incarcerated women are poor, undereducated, and women of color. Black American women are three times more likely to be in jail or prison than Hispanic women, and six times more likely than white women. Most female inmates are young (between twenty-four and twenty-nine years of age); raised in a single parent home; experienced violence or sexual abuse at home; started using drugs in their early teens; and were unemployed or in a low paying job at the
Former Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding performing community service work after serving three days in jail on a disorderly conduct charge.(AP/Wide World Photos)
time of their arrest. Eighty percent are mothers leaving approximately 250,000 children under eighteen years of age to the care of others.

Most women in prison do not receive proper healthcare or drug treatment and are often sexually abused or assaulted by male corrections officers. Medical care in a system designed primarily for men does not provide the kinds of testing, treatment, and medication needed by women and often leaves them with recurring health problems. Most women sentenced for drug crimes do not receive drug treatment therapy while incarcerated, and once released they are unable to receive federal assistance such as food stamps and student loans because of their drug convictions. Roughly 80 percent of female drug users released after serving time will return to prison on new convictions.

Some offenders are placed in community-based corrections without ever going to jail or prison. Others are assigned to these correction programs after serving part of their prison sentence to learn how to rejoin community life. These programs include strict supervision, house arrest and electronic monitoring, halfway houses, boot camp prisons, and work-release programs.

The popularity and growth of community-based programs nationwide is based on five factors: (1) the programs provide closer supervision than regular probation sentences; (2) major cost savings compared to full incarceration; (3) flexibility for judges to sentence to community correction programs instead of incarceration in a jail or prison; (4) a more gradual reentry into community life after prison or jail time; and, (5) less overcrowding in jails and prisons.

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User Comments

MOST or SOME, regardless it is a lot, last statistic I read was 1 in 3 women are sexually assaulted. That to me would be MOST.

over 6 years ago

Alyssa

Chad, have you even seen any research on the rates of past victimization on women who are incarcerated? For most of these women who were abused it was at the hands of someone they knew when they were young. Not all abuse or victimization against these women is sexual--some physical, sexual, or witnessing violence against someone they know. Anyway, the psychological trauma of victimization is high.